


Threshold and Tolerance

by Edwardina



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rough Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-28
Updated: 2008-12-28
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:01:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edwardina/pseuds/Edwardina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam, Ruby, and pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Threshold and Tolerance

**Author's Note:**

> Written for fleshflutter for spn_j2_xmas! Amongst the things you listed were Sam het rarepairs, rough sex, powers!Sam, and a dislike of Sam or Dean putting anyone ahead of each other, and this touches a bit on all of these things. I am not sure how successfully, haha. This is not my usual style or topic, so I hope it's remotely within the scheme of your preferences! :)

Somewhere in there, thinks Sam, there was a girl.

He's gotten used to Ruby's new body. The dark hair and bottomless eyes, the soft openness of her face and mouth. It's so different from the sharp, skinny, smug angles of Ruby's last body. At first it's hard to think of her as the same person, but every once in a while, she'll gnash her teeth as she bites into her diner food -- she relishes it, even more than Dean used to -- or stare right at him and he'll see her in there. The real Ruby. The one he's learning to recognize without the trappings of girl flesh.

Somewhere inside the wrapping paper of skin, muscle, bone, and nerves, there was a girl. Not in the person whose body this was, but in the person residing within the body now. The demon. Once, maybe it had a tender female heart and a maternal instinct and a menstrual cycle and a womb ripe with the possibility of children in the future, just like Jessica. Ruby was human once.

Sam was, too. A long time ago.

He thinks about Ruby when she's not around. If he thinks about her when she is around, she gets defensive, gets invasive and tries to make him forget it with that mouth of hers tilting up invitingly to his.

When Ruby is around, she takes over the room somehow, whether her arms are crossed and her hip cocked or whether she's sleeping on her side next to him, all warm naked skin and feeble human breaths. She fills the entire space up with the smell of her body and the darkness that's touched her, like the burned black energy that's left of what once was her soul spills out of the coma patient and lurks in the corners. She takes over what's left of him. Hell is right there with her, and Sam touches it every time he touches her. Hell. He fucks the Hell right out of her and back in again.

And she couldn't moan harder if he told her to.

 

*

 

Demons love sex, Ruby comments around a mouth full of pizza. She imparts these casual pearls of wisdom like Dean would; if she was hijacking a guy's body, maybe she'd even stick her hand down her pants and scratch the guy's balls while belching her gems of the day to the tune of the alphabet.

That's part of the appeal, apparently. Besides chaos. Sex. Every body feels different. Every body is sensitive in its own way, used and abused to different degrees, encoded all the way to the core with its own excitements and hang-ups. Bodies come with their own shapes and brains come with their own ideas.

Remember Blondie? Ruby asks, arm tucked behind her head, cheek full of pizza. She was a real Jesus freak, and on the outside she swore she'd wait for marriage so she could be pure for her husband on their wedding night. But on the inside, she was terrified that she'd wind up with someone who sucked in bed, so she obsessed about sex all the time, even while she was denouncing it. I hocked her purity ring for fifty bucks and broke her in nice and slow with her dad's best friend. Her first time. It was fun.

What makes you think I want to hear this, Sam demands, feeling a sick thrill of disgust that's oddly relieving in that he can still feel that kind of thing.

But Ruby continues, Just so you know, this one wasn't a virgin. It was actually more like _my_ first time, since I haven't slept with anyone else in this get-up.

Her eyes roam to him as she licks grease off the girl's fingers.

Just you, she says, and the part of Sam that's still human hurts and aches with the reluctant swell of arousal in his belly.

 

*

 

He knows Dean would hate this -- all of this. He would cuss out Ruby and yell and disapprove in a fashion most likely violent that Sam's trying so hard to tap into his psychic crap, and he would freak out if he knew Sam was touching her like he is. The knowledge burns inside Sam's brain until his whole body is flushing hot with it and it works all the way through to his cock.

Demons love sex. 

Sam's definitely got demon blood.

Sometimes he just can't wait, and he fucks her right on the floor of whatever warehouse or garage they've commandeered, nose still bleeding from the efforts of exorcising, the body of their experiment either dead in the chair they strapped it into or passed out cold from the torturous proceedings. Blood drips onto Ruby's face from his, smears over her cheek, glistens on her belly or the inside of her thigh, and she doesn't say, Hang on, there, tiger, or whoa, Sam. Ruby doesn't want to have heart-to-hearts when they fuck; she can't get her jeans down fast enough for him, and she doesn't care about anything other than begging him for what they both want. She wants him so bad that it makes him angry -- how fucking dare she want this, how fucking dare she use this body to tempt him and stretch it to accommodate him -- and she just begs for him to take it out on her. And he does, and it just makes him even angrier, until he could crush her body's delicate wrists pinning her down the way he does.

He's never fucked anyone like he fucks Ruby. Jessica: he never would have done this to her, never would have felt like this with her or screwed her like it was a punishment, and she never would have begged, Hurt me, Sam, hurt me, _hurt me_. He'd wanted to bite Madison, of all things, but the flickering of the fireplace in her room calmed him, and he gentled himself, supported and encouraged her. She'd already been bitten. With Ruby, his arms around her are like a steel trap, and he takes what he wants and rams his dick in to the hilt, spreading her open all around it and hitting her body's cervix and making her wail anguished moans out into the shameless open. He grinds his hips into her and makes her take it all, and she does, sobbing, God, fuck it open, fuck me open, I'm gonna fucking _come_ \--

One night he snarls his teeth into her neck and she gasps like he's striking a raw nerve and says, Yes, Sam, yes. So he bites her neck, teeth sunk deep into her, so close to scratching his itch, and the next day, there's a neat circle of teeth marks on Ruby's neck, marked dark red and purpling out in tiny pinprick splotches where blood vessels ruptured. Neither of them say anything about it. Sam should feel bad, but he doesn't; Ruby should be wincing and bitching about her damaged packaging, but she loves that he loses control, loves that she can make him.

Dean wouldn't even recognize him.

Don't think about him, Ruby says, every time she's curled up next to him and can feel the painful shape of his name passing through Sam's consciousness. Don't.

Don't tell me what to think, erupts out of Sam like he's a fucking volcano of rage, and Ruby's hands -- so soft and delicately freckled -- flutter over him, and they just stoke the fire.

Calm down, she commands, and Sam growls, You don't want me to calm down.

 

*

There are times where Ruby seems real -- not like a passenger in the most convenient taxi, but real, really human. Sam may be used to her being around and taking up space and trying to get a rein on his unruly powers, but he can't get over it every time she steps out of the shower and pulls all her wet hair up into a ponytail. That's _Ruby_. He sees her pulling on clothes in the morning like every other person. She wonders out loud if the cheesecake is any good in this place, and her eyes shine when Sam pulls up even the most half-assed smile.

There are times when she eases him into a kiss before he knows it -- just a kiss, arms up around his neck and fingers in his hair, inviting him in with lips warm and open.

Sometimes Ruby will say something like, Look at the sunset. All those colors. Pretty.

And those times are always weird, and they make Sam shut down into a dead silence, make his fist lock white-knuckled around the steering wheel or make him abandon the effort of finishing his short stack.

Somewhere in there, deep and fragile in there, there really is a girl.

 

*

 

Ruby's an expert when it comes to slitting throats.

It's a demon thing, she says easily. It's always been the number one go-to method for killing humans. They even have seminars about it for all the newbies.

Sam doesn't know whether she's joking or not. He's not interested in getting the answer, because either way, it just makes him think of Dean. The go-to Dean put his faith in. Silver bullet to the heart.

There are a few times where Sam can't get it up -- his psychic thing. He runs on low most of the time and empty the rest of the time, and accordingly, his brain just sputters. His hand brings no point of focus. His head feels like it'll explode if he even tries to remember what his current cell phone number is, let alone if he tries to psychically squeeze the demon out of a human.

Fucking pussy, one demon sneers out the piercing-laden mouth he's stolen. Sam doesn't even know whether demons retain genders, but he's pretty sure it's a guy's words that are crudely making it out some poor goth girl's throat. Inside the girl, the demon laughs, all balls and brass. I thought you were supposed to be powerful. What's the matter, Sammy? Performance anxiety? Or could it be you can't do anything without your brother here to back you up? Too bad Dean's not here to take care of all your little problems anymore. Tsk... so sa --

Ruby has no patience for it when they get long-winded with their taunting. She jams her knife into the goth girl's throat, the blade cleanly slicing through a thick leather choker, and rips it out again, dragging a sea of blood out the girl's neck in a flood. There's the electric snapping of the demon dying right in front of him, taking his hostage with him, the wet gurgle of blood finding its way out, and Sam just stares and sighs.

Ruby's eyes are reproachful when he meets them, and Sam goes cold, then immediately hot, the roil of anger always there beneath the surface quick to break through.

Nice one, she says sarcastically. You're not even bleeding.

Well, thanks for taking care of that pesky little problem for me, Dean, Sam snaps.

She doesn't have patience for his shit, either.

Sam, don't. Don't listen to it. You know how it works -- you know he was just picking up what you were broadcasting, she says, voice wavering. This girl's voice box can't handle the pointed, icy insults the way Blondie's could. It almost goes weak when Ruby's pissed.

I know, Sam growls savagely, and collapses against the nearby wall, rubbing his aching head; in spite of what Ruby said, the inside of his nostril feels tender and wet, and he sniffs back the blood. Believe me, I know. 

He spits it out, then, because he has to, all this poison in him.

But don't think I didn't notice that you killed that demon because it mentioned Dean. I know you don't want me to think about him, but that's just fucking tough, Ruby. I think about him all the time -- _all_ the time -- and there's nothing you can do about it.

You don't think about him all the time, she says, shaking. You don't think about him when you're busy bruising me --

Shut up, he says flatly, but she speaks right over him, advances toward him all too gently.

You don't think about him when you're fucking me so hard that I can't stop screaming and you have to put your hand over my mouth to try and muffle it --

 _Yes, I do_ , Sam yells back, the deep, true pitch of his darkest insides reverberating in the warehouse and echoing off into the darkness beyond the halo of their lantern. You just don't pick up on it 'cause you're too busy begging me to split you open on my dick. Y'know something, Dean was right about you. You really are a black-eyed skank.

That stops her in her tracks, an arm's length from him.

Call me all the names you want, Sam, Ruby finally says, her voice cold and low. Dean's still dead, and I'm still here.

 

*

 

Though he promised sobriety, Sam stops off at some dump of a tavern and dulls the noise in his head with a beer before he makes his winding way back to his motel room.

Ruby took off into the night without him, so he doesn't expect to open the door of his motel room to find her to be leaning against the headboard, stripped down to a tank top and a pair of panties, a newspaper draped open over her bare thighs. It doesn't surprise him to see her either, though. She's around a lot now. She can probably smell the bar on him, or feel the warmth of the alcohol in his chest, or hear his sloppy thoughts, but she doesn't say anything.

Sam trudges off to the dingy bathroom, brushes his teeth, strips his shirts off. The old amulet that Dean wore for so many years is hanging around his neck, warm on his skin, and he grasps at it momentarily. It slips through his fingers for a second, then his hand is empty and falling to his side uselessly. He can't help but feel like somewhere, somehow, Dean is angry at him for doing all of this and for not being able to save his life and his soul, and it just makes the wound of his absence gape even wider and bleed out even more profusely, no matter how hard Ruby's trying to stop it. Still, he'll never take it off again. He'll never be with Ruby without Dean around his neck.

Sorry, Ruby, he says heavily when he sits on the edge of the bed. His head hangs heavy, like his brain weighs too much for his neck to support.

It's okay, she says. Get some sleep. We'll try again tomorrow.

I mean, I'm sorry I think about Dean when I'm with you, he says stupidly. I'm sorry I hurt you.

After a moment of silence, Ruby says, No, you're not. And it's okay. You know I like it when it hurts. This body can withstand a lot of pain, Sam. _I_ can withstand a lot of pain.

Must be nice, Sam mutters.

Only had to endure centuries of torture to pay for it, Ruby says.


End file.
